Last week the Connecticut Tigers hosted the New York-Penn League All-Star Game with a host of talented young players moving out of the complex leagues and making their professional debuts. Twelve position players garnered most of my attention throughout the evening. While it is always risky placing too much weight on a one-game sample, the following are my notes on the position players who stood out last week.

A look at Carlos Correa, Javier Baez, Billy Hamilton and others in a tour of the minors.

Carlos Correa, SS, Astros (Low-A Quad Cities)The top pick in the 2012 draft started his full-season experience by hitting .221 in April, which didn’t raise any red flags because he was only 18 and playing at an advanced level. Because of a work ethic that pushes scouts to label his makeup as elite, Correa has taken huge developmental steps forward throughout the season, and has emerged as one of the premier prospects in the game. Finding comfort at the plate and learning to trust his hands and explode into the ball, Correa is showing the Midwest League his plus potential hit tool and maturing power. Once his timing clicked, the contact grew louder and louder, and the young prospect has produced an OPS near 1.000 in the second half. The glove has also been better than advertised, as the actions are clean and smooth, and several sources said he has the chops to stick at the position for the foreseeable future. Let’s break it down: Correa is still only 18, he’s hitting better than .330 in the Midwest League, he’s hitting lefties to the tune of .450-plus, he can play a premium defensive position, he has natural hitting instincts, the doubles will eventually turn into home runs, and the makeup is applauded by people who aren’t prone to applause. That’s a monster talent, the kind of player who can change the fortunes of a franchise. –Jason Parks

Javier Baez, SS, Cubs (Double-A Tennessee)I’ve been fortunate enough to do a lot of radio hits in the Chicago market, and I’m usually asked about the positional depth in the Cubs’ org, and which prospect has the highest ceiling. Baez has long been my answer despite the fact that Baseball Prospectus ranked Almora higher on the pre-season and mid-season lists, mostly due to the fact that Baez was viewed by many to be a high-risk player. The tools are very loud, with elite bat speed at the plate and excellent hands in the field, but the aggressiveness and one-speed-at-all-times approach in all phases of the game painted the picture of an immature player, a prospect that might spoil his future before it has a chance to blossom. After an impressive run in the Florida State League, the blossoming we have eagerly anticipated has taken place after a promotion to Double-A, where Baez already has 26 extra-base hits in his first 40 games. Double-A is a test level, a separator level where pretenders are exposed and future major-league players are uncovered. It’s a small sample but a positive developmental step, and Baez is showing that he is not only prepared for the test but talented enough to excel against much older and wiser competition. He could be a star, a role 7 type with a middle-of-the-order bat and left-side chops in the field. Whatever his future role might be, the Cubs have an extremely valuable commodity in Baez.–-Jason Parks

Many of our authors make a habit of speaking to scouts and other talent evaluators in order to bring you the best baseball information available. Not all of the tidbits gleaned from those conversations make it into our articles, but we don't want them to go to waste. Instead, we'll be collecting them in a regular feature called "What Scouts Are Saying," which will be open to participation from the entire BP staff and include quotes about minor leaguers and major leaguers alike.

Many of our authors make a habit of speaking to scouts and other talent evaluators in order to bring you the best baseball information available. Not all of the tidbits gleaned from those conversations make it into our articles, but we don't want them to go to waste. Instead, we'll be collecting them in a regular feature called "What Scouts Are Saying," which will be open to participation from the entire BP staff and include quotes about minor leaguers and major leaguers alike.

Many of our authors make a habit of speaking to scouts and other talent evaluators in order to bring you the best baseball information available. Not all of the tidbits gleaned from those conversations make it into our articles, but we don't want them to go to waste. Instead, we'll be collecting them in a regular feature called "What Scouts Are Saying," which will be open to participation from the entire BP staff and include quotes about minor leaguers and major leaguers alike.

Phillies SS prospect J.P. Crawford (Rookie GCL Phillies - Phillies 1st round pick (16th overall) of the 2013 draft, BP Scouting Video): "J.P. has come in from day one and embraced a leadership role. A lot of first-round picks come into rookie ball with an attitude and isolate themselves. That’s not the case here. Players gravitate to him, and he welcomes it."

Nolan Sanburn, RHP, Athletics (Low-A Beloit)After seeing the start to his season delayed as a result of a shoulder injury suffered in spring training, Sanburn made his Midwest League debut this week after four brief innings in the Arizona Complex League. Sanburn’s debut for the Low-A Beloit Snappers went well, with the former Arkansas Razorback throwing two hitless innings while walking and striking out two. He sat a comfortable 90-92 mph with his fastball, moving it around the zone and touching 94 twice. Sanburn also mixed in two distinct breakers in the form of a hard 83-84 mph slider with tilt and a downer upper-70s curve with good bite. Sanburn also throws a straight change with some late dip, but did not utilize it in-game. The plan is still to eventually shift Sanburn over to a starter role, but for now the A’s will look to build up his arm strength and help him get innings under his belt. --Nick J. Faleris

D.J. Peterson, 1B, Mariners (Short-season Everett)
Peterson was arguably the most advanced bat of the 2013 draft class, and he has begun to put his lumber to work through his first 21 games with the short-season Everett AquaSox. Over 93 plate appearances, Peterson is hitting .286/.344/.536 with eight walks and 15 strikeouts, while launching five home runs and six doubles in his short pro career. The former Lobo boasts a tight bat path and good extension through contact, as well as balance at the plate and an ability to utilize a full-field approach. Peterson likely won’t see his first true test until he reaches High-A (potentially later this summer) or Double-A (most likely next year), where the caliber of pitching is more likely to match up with his advanced approach. --Nick J. Faleris

Chicago White Sox professional scout John Tumminia asked that we share this with our readers. Please consider supporting this good cause.

A group of MLB Scouts, former MLB players and local coaches, along with a support staff, are attempting to bring the gospel of baseball and softball to the youth of the world. This year our mission is bring the game to Kenya in November 2013.

A four-game set between New Britain (Twins) and Reading (Phillies) was just what the heart needed: an occupational vacation to the resorts of the Double-A level, sipping radar gun readings on the beaches behind home plate. New Britain is a casual little town in the middle of Connecticut, slightly southwest of Hartford, and slightly southwest of being a city I ever want to find myself in again. But the action on the field swept me away, and the Rock Cats’ staff were some of the friendliest people I’ve encountered on the minor-league scene, so I will no doubt find myself on an Eastern League holiday again very soon. Here are some observations from the experience.

With rosters for the Futures Game released, Jason looks at the players he's most excited to see on a big stage.

It needs to be remembered that the Futures Game is not your standard all-star game, where the most worthy for inclusion are recognized for their first-half production or promise. While it’s certainly true that the rosters are thick with frontline talent, the roster limitations (two players per team; some could have three depending on the lucky winners of the fan vote), positional necessity and nationality help shape the selections. Ex: Carlos Correa is candidate for inclusion via the MLB fan vote, but was not included on the initial roster. Jordan Lennerton is on the initial roster. He’s a 27-year-old first baseman in Triple-A. He’s also Canadian. Life isn’t always fair.

Let’s take a quick journey through the rosters, looking at the impact talent that I’m most looking forward to watching.

Jason Parks updates his rankings of the best prospects in the minor leagues.

Before you dive into the list, a few explanations about the construction that might prove beneficial. Prospects currently playing at the major-league level were not eligible for this list. I also didn’t follow standard guidelines for rookie eligibility; rather, if a prospect has logged significant playing time at the highest level—be it the commonly recognized 50 innings for a pitcher, 130 at-bats for a hitter, or just under those magic plateaus—I made a judgment call as to whether or not his inclusion would add to the product. This list is about prospects, not major-league players masquerading as prospects because they fall just short of such recognized classifications. If a player has sipped a form of major-league coffee over the course of two seasons, he won’t be included on this list. These are all prospects currently playing in the minors, and only four players on the list have major-league experience of any kind. Because it’s a mid-season list and not the more comprehensive offseason production, I wanted the focus to be on the talent in the minors and not on those still wearing the label despite playing under the bright lights in the big parks.

Looking at the prospects and the systems that rose or fell in our writers' eyes.

With the first half of the minor-league season in the books (or at least near the books), it’s appropriate to review some of the material we have been presented with along the way. The nature of the developmental system is the tug of war between progression and regression, both at the individual level and with the farms themselves, and it’s important to recognize and review such trends without losing context of the sample or the process in general. We take snapshots of a fixed point in time, pictures of arbitrary beginnings and endings that we inflate in order to compartmentalize and classify. This is our nature and our beast, but we are not on the hunt for binary conclusions or reports chiseled into the cement. The pleasing bloom of a prospect in June could spoil and wilt by July, and the possibility of that decay is not lost on anybody reading this article. The schizophrenia of the season is one of the many reasons we adore this particular aspect of the sport; the conclusions formed in the first half aren’t predetermined as conclusions that will be formed in the second. For this article, let’s take a look at some of the more interesting events of the first half, including prospects with significant developmental shifts, farms on the climb or the descent, and some of the statistical oddities, curiosities, and peculiarities of the first three months of the minor-league season.